


The More Loving One

by ossseous (ozean)



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Child Death, General Crusades Stuff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Religion, Seige of Antioch, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25230526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozean/pseuds/ossseous
Summary: It's a drop in the bucket, overall. Of all the blood he has shed during his not-life. Warm and slick, coming out of him in slippery gushes of red. Yusuf has seen other men bleed so much they died. It always surprises him how much someone can lose before life slinks away from them once and for all. But he’s never seen it for himself. Not yet then. This is his first time dying.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 5
Kudos: 126





	The More Loving One

**Author's Note:**

> The translation for any non-english dialogue can be seen by hovering over it.

It's a drop in the bucket, overall. Of all the blood he has shed during his not-life. Warm and slick, coming out of him in slippery gushes of red.

Yusuf had seen other men bleed so much they died. It always surprises him how much someone can lose before life slinks away from them once and for all. But he’s never seen it for himself. Not yet then. This is his first time dying.

And the face that glares down with him with all the hatred a person can own, it's not the one he wanted to see before he died. It is beautiful the way a flood is beautiful. Eyes vacant of any love one can have for humanity--just a love for destruction.

This Christian man doesn't waver--his hand doesn't even shake where it is clutched on the sword, hilt-deep in his gut and twisted. Yusuf wants to say something, anything, but he knows that if he opens his mouth to speak, all that will spill will be the blood that he desperately needs to keep on the inside.

So instead he decides to fight against all the wrongness of that intrusion, the stinging aching burning confusion of having hard unforgiving metal someplace that was once soft and yielding, and he pulls the knife he keeps tucked in the sleeve of his jazerant out. Before his killer can even notice the movement, Yusuf sinks it deep into the man's jugular. Right behind jawbone--where it is just as soft and yielding as his gut.

The man looks betrayed and Yusuf gives up a gargling burp of a laugh at that. He cannot discern the flavor of that man's betrayal. Betrayal of his expectation of imminent victory? Betrayal of his God? Betrayal of his own foolhardy assumption that his enemy wouldn't do everything in his power to kill him too?

Yusuf doesn't have long to decide as the man slips his sword free of where it is bruising deep in Yusuf's intestines and crumples to the ground. One time, as a child, Yusuf watched a man beat the dust out of an old blanket from his window, only to see it slip from his gnarled hands and fall into the street below. The children all laughed, but Yusuf couldn’t help but be transfixed by the way it fluttered to the ground in a fraction of a second. The weight of it was so much more substantial than he thought it should have been. It seemed like only a second after Yusuf yanks the blade right out of his throat that he becomes just another heap on the ground. Yusuf’s legs give out and he sinks to the floor right after him.

And it is laying there, in the growing pool of their blood, that Yusuf feels a twinge of contentment. One less monster to destroy the lives of the people he loves. Lifeless eyes gawk at him from an arms-length away and they could be the eyes of a father, brother, son--but he cares not, because the world is only cold and Yusuf is fading to black.

* * *

Yusuf wakes with a sharp inhale, raw and stuck in his throat like needles in a tapestry. His feet slip in the blood as he tries to sit himself up, to drag his still sleeping legs underneath him. The Christian man is also awake, clutching at his jugular with wide-eyes and seething disbelief.

“Che cosa hai fatto?” dribbles from his lips over and over as he tries to exist as far away from Yusuf as he can in the confines of the storeroom Yusuf found him rifling through. Yusuf doesn't care what he is saying. Doesn’t want to know the thoughts of a murderer.

The Christian man half stumbles, half crawls across to him and before Yusuf can process what he is even doing, this Christian man is yanking open the panels of his jazerant, baring his stomach to the open air. He expects it to burn, to feel the stagnant, sweat filled air of the room on the part of his body that should be on the insider of him and on the inside only. But he feels nothing but hands that slide over his skin, smearing away the sticky blood. Yusuf watches, waiting for him to reveal the ugly gash. He fears that after all the twisting, some of his intestines might have spilled out of him. But there's nothing there. The man's eyes track up to his.

"Demone," he whispers, breathless, horrified. 

Yusuf can guess what that means. It isn't like there are no Christians in Antioch.

And it isn’t like he is the only one who’s wounds have seemed to heal against all laws of logic and truth.

So before the Christian can do whatever he wants to do, Yusuf flips them, tightens his hands around that bloody, unmarred neck, and squeezes as tight as he can. He pushes all his weight down until that face begins to purple, until the hands beating and clawing against him begin to slow. 

He doesn't even feel the bite of his own knife slipping into his lungs from between his ribs.

* * *

He knows he is outside when he wakes. Laid out in a row of dead men, all of them dragged from the city proper. His killer lies beside him, eyes vacant of life once more. There should be battle going on, shouting in the distance, the melodic ring of swords beating relentlessly against one another. But there is only a quiet stillness and a distant crackle.

The damp of a night humid with death hangs heavy and Yusuf pulls himself up with the help of a nearby crate, beats life into his legs with a pounding fist to each thigh like it might bring any blood that pooled back to life faster.

Something burns in his lungs, slows him down--the cloying stain of smoke drifting across the city stings his eyes. For a moment he worries that the Christians have won and have decided to burn the dead of Antioch. Yusuf cannot dwell for long as embers spark like meteorites crashing to earth and from the edge of his vision he sees movement among the dead.

The Christian rises and Yusuf curses as climbs to his feet just as numbly as Yusuf had.

The man casts about for a weapon the second he sees Yusuf, and Yusuf pats at his empty scabbard in answer. A rock, a shovel, a plank--he is willing to try anything. The Christian looks ready to lunge for a dead man’s sword when screams flutter on the wind like an echo and they both freeze.

Hesitation lasts only a moment and before the next scream can even be cast into the air they both take off towards it, at an admittedly hampered pace.

Two streets over they find the scene, a man standing over the body of a young boy, limp, a sword forgotten at his side, most of his face has disappeared under the crushed bone of his skull. It is simple a dark mass, the boy he once was unrecognizable. A fire smolders nearby, a spit ready to take meat resting above him.

The white cape could have told him the warrior was a Christian, but the fact of it is that it didn’t matter who that man was, Yusuf would have killed him regardless. He bolts after the boy’s sword, hacks and cleaves at the man’s neck until he too is a heap of a body on the ground.

Yusuf looks up, expecting the fight to continue, but his own killer does not come to revenge upon his comrade. The grim sneer he levels at the fallen warrior speaks only of disgust.

“ "Saeidni,” he says. But the Christian doesn’t budge, only looks to Yusuf. “Khudh alsabii.”

Yusuf stalks up to him. His killer seems almost in shock as Yusuf yanks and rips the white cape from his hauberk, but still he doesn’t pick up the child. He tries to remember the scant Latin he has learned. “Puer.” He gestures to the boy. “Exciperent.” He mimes lifting the boy up.

The Christian seems to understand that at least, and stoops to lift the boy up, cradling him in his arms like one would a small babe.

“Sequi me?” he tries, and as he walks to the Orontes, the Christian follows.

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't up to the quality I generally try to ascribe to but it is the first time i've felt like writing fic in like a year so i figure i should just lean into it. I'll try and clean it up soon but I wanna crank a second chapter out while I'm still feeling it, ya know?


End file.
